Nespresso Christmas Gift

I am for sure not a coffee connoisseur. I don’t know what makes a good coffee and I only judge by how my taste buds take it. I notice some coffee tastes a little more acidic than others but that’s about it. Don’t ask me about woodsy, nutty, etc. I have no idea…

But I know for sure too that my taste buds don’t like those instant three-in-one coffee. So at home, hubby and our helper usually have their own brand of three-in-one, while I have a separate jar of plain black decent instant coffee for myself. But even that is at most, decent.

I usually prefer plain good brewed black coffee or if I have to have it with milk, I like it as a cappuccino, lots of froth and no sugar.

And for those reasons, hubby has always wanted to get me a coffee machine, while I’ve always resisted his offer because I didn’t think it was worth it. But yesterday, while at the mall, we chanced by the Nespresso year-end promotion – S$50 off any nespresso machine.

My friend, Grace, has one and swears by it. We have tried the samples during one of her visits to SG to stock up on her capsules. I must say, my taste buds liked it.

So yesterday, we got ourselves our own Nespresso Essenza machine.

It came with 16 capsules, one of each coffee type.

I almost had a bad experience with it because when we got home to make our first coffee, it wasn’t working out of the box. I had to call Nespresso support because there was no water coming out of the machine but they explained that it was a common occurrence for brand new machines because there was air inside somewhere that had to be pumped out so I just had to keep pressing for coffee until water comes out. Fortunately, it’s working now and all that bad stuff is almost forgotten because the coffee is just really good.

We also got the Aeroccino so we can have frothy milk. I can do my cappuccino at home now!

Each capsule is about a dollar, so it’s not exactly cheap (as I was complaining to the Nespresso support. I mean you spend money on something, you at least expect it to work out of the box! – good thing they were sport about it). But the overall experience is worth it because the coffee is good and Nespresso service and support is so far good too.

So today, I went back to the boutique to buy the welcome pack which is 160 capsules for about S$158 sgd with a free container/dispenser.

Nespresso Welcome Pack

So far I like the Dulsao do Brasil. I tried the Finezzo to see if I can taste the Bergamot – haha no comment.

But so far so good! I’m looking forward to having great coffee everyday and letting my mom try all the flavors.

Next week I’ll probably come back to the boutique to try the Christmas edition – flavored coffees in vanilla, cherry, or dark chocolate.

Received a Nespresso machine for Christmas from my folks. Upon arriving home, my wife and I setup the machine and tried to make a cup of coffee. To our surprise, no water came out! I called Nespresso and spoke with someone who walked me through several steps to troubleshoot the issue. We were unable to resolve, so they explained a temporary unit would be shipped until our machine could be fixed. I Googled the issue and found your blog. I tried running the machine several times, and eventually water started coming out! Was excited to find our machine is okay. Thanks very much for writing. Enjoyed the post!

I’ve been mooching aonrud coffee-based websites and forums for weeks as I wanted to get my husband a coffee machine as part of his Christmas gift. While I’ve taken on board much of what is said about the Nespresso being wasteful and not as good as the real thing’ I think it has to be balanced against what most people want from a coffee machine.In our house, only my husband drinks coffee. Until now he’s used a caffetier on weekends and made do with instant on weekday mornings as he doesn’t have time to faff about. The trouble is, the ground coffee goes stale because unless we put him into caffeine orbit, he can not drink enough coffee to use it up before it goes off.So, all things considered, I’ve bought him a Nespresso U. The capsules will keep it reasonably fresh as long as he doesn’t over-stock, price per cup isn’t very high (lower considering his fresh coffee waste)and they have a pretty good recycling scheme where they’ll collect the used pods (or I can put them in my household recycling and put the grinds on the compost).I know my husband and I know our lifestyle and short of growing our own coffee (good luck with that in the UK!) it is probably less wasteful than other machines/concepts.

First, let me assure you, I have no coicnetnon with Nespresso. I have the Nespresso Pixie. My daughter, who lives in Switzerland raved about her Nespresso coffee, so I thought I would give it a try with the least amount of investment. It is very popular in Switzerland, France and Italy, with machines in most office buildings. I have found that most Americans are not familier with the Nespresso coffee, so to say it favors American wastefulness is unfounded. I’ve found the coffee to be quite good to excellent, and I appreciate the convenience. As far as all this talk about the pod not being environmentally friendly the Swiss are the most green of all people, and they have no problem with cleaning the used pod out, using the grounds as compost, and recycling the aluminum. It takes all of 10 seconds to do this proceedure. The aluminum crumbles up to the size of a quarter or the cap off a bottle of sparkling water. You have one to two espresso per day, not 10. Seriously people I think using not being environmentally friendly is unjustified. When you can’t complain about the quality of a product, you play the envirnment card. I think I got a great deal, and continue to use mine daily, a year or more later.

Alfred, your get real comment sueirpsrd me.I’ve been using a manual machine for 2 years now. It’s Italian made, and produces fairly good espresso. I’m a coffeelover, coffee fan, know very much about all sorts of coffee but I don’t want to clean up a mess after every cup I make. Also, I don’t have time to manually prepare every single cup. So after two weeks I’ve only prepared maybe 5 espressi and my coffee is old. So I have to throw it away! That’s bad for the environment (I’m not so green-oriented, but everyone seems to be) and not fair for the people who spent all this time at creating my perfect blend.Now I have bought a nespresso machine and some cups (more expensive than ground coffee but less expensive than a new pack of ground coffee every 2 or 3 weeks) and I love the coffee. It’s better than I can prepare at home, because I have no barista-like quality material and I don’t want to spend a fortune at buying it.So to you Alfred, all the best at using you own grinder and machine, I hope to do so one day to, but to everyone else who want quality and simplicity: Nespresso, what else..

I don’t like informational articles usually, but your article is the exception to my rule. You have some very engaging and interesting content in this article. I think you make many original and fresh points.

The next time I read a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as significantly as this 1. I mean, I know it was my option to read, but I really thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is actually a bunch of whining about something which you could fix when you werent too busy seeking for attention.

Thank you so much MJ,I love eggplant too and I think you will really enjoy it in this salad. I always cube the eggplant for salads,smaller pieces are easier to eat, plate and I think look better in a salad